The Crane Wife...

It was raining and cold. A typical April night in Chicago. I held my umbrella over us both and the wind forcefully pressed it down over us. One gloved hand held the center tube of the umbrella close to my chest. My other gloved hand held the tip of one of the umbrellas branches, keeping it from whipping up and away, gone forever.

Her hands were in her pockets. She huddled close to me for shelter or warmth. Or comfort. I didn't ask to clarify. I just enjoyed the short time that we would be there. I caught myself looking away from her, at the cars that slowly crossed underneath us at the Belmont overpass. I felt nervous about looking at her face for reasons that I can't adequately explain.

"I've been listening to The Decemberists a lot lately. "The Crane Wife", have you heard it?" I asked her. In fact, I'd begun the day with "Shankill Butchers" on a loop as I made my way through the early morning in the city. The gray skies. The slow, steady drizzle of rain. The weather perfectly suited the song. Perhaps you know it. Perhaps you know what I mean.

"Oh yes. I know it." she answered, each crisp English syllable perfectly formed by the British educational system. Sometimes I felt dull, slow and very American, when she spoke. Which didn't detract from the pleasure of hearing her speak, not...one...bit. "It's a beautiful story. The Crane Wife. Do you know it?"

"Honestly, it's so new to me that I haven't learned the words yet. But I think it's beautiful, too." I looked back at her briefly. She was looking at me, through wisps of her long, brown hair. Amidst the rain, the cold, the noise and the chaos of the city, her singular attention was on me.

"I will tell it to you. It's a Japanese myth, I believe. A poor farmer finds a crane, injured. I think it comes to his home and he finds it at his doorstep. I think it's been shot with an arrow. He heals it and it transforms from a crane to a beautiful woman. And he marries her. It does not go well, because she was a beautiful crane and she wants to fly again. The sky calls to her. But the farmer does not release her from the marriage and she dies."

"That's terrible," I said, "It says terrible things about men, women and marriage."

"In some traditions, Norse I think, she's the Seal Wife. And she has a suit that she wears to become a seal. But the husband hides it from her and she can't transform back and she dies too."

"Hm, sounds like a story that a woman tells her daughter. A metaphor for the female point of view, concerning the servitude of marriage." I look away from the street and back at her. She is looking at me.

"Oh, I don't know. I've heard of some tellings, where the wife does transform back to the crane and she does fly away and she leaves the poor farmer behind. That's a bit of a happier ending." she smiled at me.

"For the crane. Not so happy for the farmer. I bet if he could have his choice, he wouldn't have lost her."

"Well, that's what he got for loving a wild thing that couldn't be tamed," and she looked away, out over the traffic on Belmont street.

Later, we talked about her plans. She said that she didn't have any. But, that her parents wanted her to move back to London. But that she has friends in New York and she could make a living there as an actress. She hates the weather in Chicago, but she likes the lifestyle and the culture.

And then there's the boyfriend in Connecticut. He wants to move to New York too. She keeps suggesting that Chicago is nice. He returns that New York is nicer. They go back and forth. And so she is torn. The implication, though, is that she probably won't be here for much longer.

And I know with absolute certainty that when she leaves, we won't ever speak again, either by email, letter or phone call. It's a new friendship. Or a new something else. And we don't have years of a shared past, suggesting that we call each other some time, just to catch up. It just won't happen.

When this particular crane flies away to New York or to London, this particular poor farmer will never see her again. Maybe she knows it too.

For a time, neither of us spoke. But we huddled together in the cold and the rain, for shelter, for warmth, for comfort. Neither of us asking for clarity or for definition because that would break the spell and we would lose even this.

Later, she slept quietly on the train, her head resting on my shoulder. I stayed awake to make sure that she got home safe.